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I have not used bookmarks for cross-references since Word '97 for the very issues that Fred described in his reply :)

I insert references using the Cross-References button (in the References tab).

Theoretically, the whole point of using a cross-reference is to ensure it automatically updates as things change in a document. Otherwise I may as well just type in my reference and move on... Well in my case, rather than the reference automatically updating when I move the section, it dumps the entire section that I was referencing into the reference field, and changes the underlying field code.

The only thing I can think of is maybe I'm using the wrong type of references??

> Ben Davies asked about the Word 2010 cross-reference issue and added :
> "The following are the field codes for a normal cross reference in my
> document (this one works):
> { REF_Ref314839717\n\h }: { REF_Ref314839717\h \*MERGEFORMAT }"
> "The following are the field codes for the broken cross reference to the
> same section in my document (this one dumps the entire section into my
> reference): { REF_Ref319485722 \n \h }: {REF _Ref319485722 \h }"
> __________________________________
> Ben:
> You may have just solved your own problem. If the reference ending with
> \*MERGEFORMAT } works properly, just copy that segment to the end of the
> misbehaving references to match the format of the one that works.
Sorry, Margaret, but I think you're off-base on this suggestion. The \*Mergeformat switch only affects the appearance (formatting) of the field result and has no effect whatsoever on *what* appears.

The problem Ben is seeing is due to the way Word uses bookmarks to identify the "target" of cross-references. When you cut and paste text that is contained in a bookmark to an earlier position in the document, it is easy to leave the invisible marker that defines the end of the bookmark in its original location so that you wind up including everything in between the start of the new location and the end of the old location. I think in the opposite case (moving a bookmarked location to a later spot) the x-ref may just break because the end marker winds up in front of the start marker, but I can't say for sure.

In any case, the best advice I can offer is to turn on the "Show bookmarks" option (in the Advanced tab of the Word Options dialog) before you start moving things around so that you can see where the bookmarks begin and end.

-Fred Ridder

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